Lucky Girl

by Jamie Pacton

  “We went out on a boat just like the one on the pin,” says Holden. “I got seasick, but the whales were magnificent.”

  “Now I really hate you.” But I can’t keep the smile out of my voice. “The only way you can make up for it is to tell me absolutely everything about the visit.”

  Holden smiles. “Deal.”

  We spend the rest of the ride talking about what Holden saw, how it felt to be so close to the whales, and my plans for being an oceanographer.

  “Enjoy the sea sickness,” he says. “I still love nature, but I’m keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground. The deeper in the woods, the better.”

  “I’m ocean and you’re woods. This is why we didn’t work,” I say, but all my bite is gone. In fact, I find myself smiling at Holden as we pull into the parking lot of the aquarium store.

  Where is Bran when I need him to whack me over the head with a fedora?

  “Let’s ride back together,” Holden suggests. “I’m sure we still have lots more to talk about.”

  Before I can disagree or say anything at all, a bunch of third graders start pouring out of the bus. We get out of the car and wave to them.

  “Hi, Holden!” shouts Holden’s sister, Harper, tumbling down the bus stairs. She’s still tan from their fall-break trip, and her long hair is in two pigtails. She flings her arms around her brother. “You made it!”

  “Of course I did,” he says with a smile. Harper hangs on to the hug a second longer, and Holden shrugs at me over her head. I always liked how good he was with kids.

  “Hi, Harper,” I say when she lets go.

  She gives me a quick look and then smiles. It’s like the sun hitting the ocean. “JANE!” she squeals and hugs me too. “It’s so good to see you.”

  I spent so much time with Harper over the last few years, it was a bit like she was my little sister as well. As I hug her, I can’t help the smile that creeps onto my face.

  THE AQUARIUM OASIS GLOWS BLUE LIKE THE INSIDE OF A FAIRY GROTTO, and the entire place is filled with quiet, steady bubbling noises from hundreds of fish tanks. Peace fills me as I step inside. Some people have churches, but I need watery spaces.

  “Ooooohhhh,” all the third graders say in unison as we step inside. Their teacher and some of the parent guides usher them toward the largest tank in the store.

  “It looks like a rave,” whispers Holden, standing next to me in front of the group.

  “Shut up,” I whisper, but it comes out almost playful. He grins at me.

  “Why is it so blue?” one kid asks from the back of the group.

  “This is called actinic light,” I say to the third graders. “It’s what coral needs to grow when they’re not in the ocean.”

  “How many of you have seen the ocean?” Holden asks smoothly.

  Most of the kids hold up their hands, but a few don’t.

  “Well,” Holden continues, “I bet a lot of you haven’t seen coral in the ocean, right?”

  The kids who didn’t have their hands up look a little less awkward.

  “I HAVE!” Harper calls out.

  “You have,” says Holden. “We went snorkeling over fall break, and it was awesome. But even if you haven’t seen the ocean, how many of you have seen Finding Nemo?”

  Every hand in the room goes up. Holden nudges me. Right, oceanographer go time.

  “So, imagine you’re a coral in the ocean,” I say. “You’re not hanging out in the school cafeteria, underneath those bright fluorescent lights, are you?”

  All the kids shake their heads.

  “That’s right,” I continue. “All the light you’re getting is filtered through layers of water. That’s what the folks here are trying to do. This blue light helps the corals grow and thrive. It tricks them into thinking they’re deep in the ocean.”

  Just like me, I think. This blue light is what I need to grow and thrive.

  I tell them a few more facts about the ocean and then let them loose.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Holden reminds them. “Even in the open tanks. This isn’t a place for touching, like the aquarium in Milwaukee.”

  Harper pulls her hand back right before it hits an open tank of coral. I smile at Holden and we split up, moving among the groups of kids and the parent volunteers who are with them.

  I stop in front of a tank full of rare fish.

  “These all came from Australia,” I tell the kids.

  “Just like Nemo!” one shouts.

  “Exactly,” I say. “These fish have had a long journey.”

  “I bet they miss their parents,” says Harper, staring at a pair of yellow fish as they drift past.

  “They’re probably happy where they are,” says Holden, coming up to our group.

  There’s a light pressure on my hand, and then his fingers curl around mine for a moment. Without thinking, I wrap my fingers around his. I must be losing it. I’ve been lured into complacency by the blue lights and the soothing bubbles of all the aquarium pumps.

  Without a word, I drop Holden’s hand and walk over to a nearby group of kids.

  I TAKE THE BUS BACK HOME. To BLOCK OUT THE LOUD CHATTER OF THE kids, I pop my headphones in and look at my phone. The article about lotto winners who lost it all is still pulled up, and I find myself reading, no music turned on, unable to look away. As the bus rattles along the highway, I fill my notebook with more stories of unlucky winners, which just barely takes my mind off of Holden, and how unusually nice he’s being, and what he might have meant by being sorry we broke up.

  THE BIG BOOK OF LOTTO WINNER FAILS, CONTINUED Paraphrased from news sources and collected for posterity by Jane Belleweather

  UNLUCKY LOTTO WINNER NUMBER FOUR: THE CASE OF UROOJ KHAN

  This one is particularly macabre. Forty-six-year-old Urooj Khan won only $1 million on a scratch-off ticket. (That’s fifty-eight times less than what I’ve won, which means I now think of $1 million as not very much, which is so messed up.)

  The day after he won, Urooj dropped dead. Who was to blame? Was it a heart attack? Something more sinister? Suspicion and disbelief tore his family apart, and years later, a blood test revealed deadly levels of cyanide in his blood. No one was ever charged, but his sister-in-law and her father were suspected. Somehow, the family moved on, and his winnings were split. But his family (and the Chicago police) still wonder to this day who killed him.

  Note to self: Although this case is shrouded in mystery, and correlation is not causation, it’s pretty clear by now that winning lots of money makes people do terrible things. Like, load up a dinner with poison and serve it with a smile.

  UNLUCKY LOTTO WINNER NUMBER FIVE: JACK WHITTAKER, AN OBJECT LESSON

  Jack Whittaker is harder to feel sorry for than Urooj Khan, because this lucky bastard was already rich (worth something like $17 million) and then he won another $315 million in Powerball. (THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN MILLION! I can’t even imagine!)

  Jack did some good with the money, like donating to charities and setting up foundations, but he also seemingly couldn’t get enough of strip clubs. Get this: The guy got robbed more than once outside of strip clubs, and each time the thieves took hundreds of thousands of dollars from his car.

  (Get an effing bank account already, Jack. Sheesh.)

  But that’s not the worst part: Jack became an alcoholic, he and his wife divorced, and his granddaughter (whom Jack was supplying with thousands of dollars every month) died of a drug overdose.

  Whittaker and his wife both said they wished he had torn up the ticket.

  NOTE TO SELF: JACK WON NEARLY A HUNDRED TIMES MORE THAN I DID AND BROUGHT MISERY TO EVERYONE HE LOVED.

  MY FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS:

  Do I tear up the ticket???

  Or am I the most entitled, shitty human alive for not finding a way to cash it and try to do some good????

  Also, Holden is eighteen now and not being a total jackass. Is he even an option for cashing the ticket? Would he give me the money?

  (No, J
ane. Stop. Don’t even consider this. Bad idea.)

  CHAPTER NINE

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HELD HANDS WITH HOLDEN?” BRAN asks, nearly spitting out the mouthful of chips he’s just stuffed into his face.

  We’re crammed inside the Kim family pumpkin farm’s ticket booth, sitting behind the low counter. Bran is eating from a supersized bag of chips he’s pulled out of his backpack. For scale: There’s barely room for the two of us, the backpack, and the bag of chips inside the tiny booth. But this was the only place we could chat without Bran’s mom assigning us separate tasks.

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” I say quietly, so the line of people outside of the booth doesn’t hear us.

  “Of course it’s a big deal. We hate him,” Bran mutters. He offers me the bag of chips. I shake my head.

  “I know we hate him,” I say, running a hand over my super-short hair and then fiddling with the row of earrings in my right ear. When did I become such a fidgeter? “But he was nice today.”

  “He’s not nice! Remember how he’d do stuff like make you think things were your fault when they weren’t? Like that time when we were at the carnival last year, and you both were in the seat below Sofie and me. Remember what happened to his phone when he was trying to take a picture of you two? Sofie and I saw that he dropped it, but he blamed you for breaking it for the rest of the night. Or what about the way he was always saying you made him late for movies and stuff, even though he was the one who could never decide what he wanted at the snack bar? Or the way he made you second-guess what you wanted? C’mon, Jane. He was a jerk.”

  Those are all true statements, and they are certainly not part of the easy, breezy rom-com relationship I thought I had. But there’s a chance we’re remembering things wrong.

  “Maybe he was just really stressed out? Maybe his family was going through some stuff?”

  “Jane. No. We don’t feel sorry for Holden. That’s a rule.”

  “Fine,” I say, smiling at a small girl in a witch costume who’s standing beside her parents in line. “But what if he’s changed?”

  “Who cares?! He’s a douchebag, and you deserve someone better!”

  The little girl in the witch costume widens her eyes, and her mother glares at us.

  “Sorry,” I mutter, handing them their tickets to the hayride.

  I turn back to Bran. “So, how is Sofie? I saw her Instagram photos from yesterday. She’s so lucky to live in Sydney. Can you even—”

  “Jane, don’t change the subject. You don’t need Holden in your life.”

  With a long sigh, I slump into the chair behind the counter. “Fine. You’re right.”

  “He wants something,” says Bran. “Trust me. I can just tell.”

  “With what? Your investigative instincts?”

  He makes a face at me. “Yes, those. Don’t let yourself get drawn back into his orbit.”

  He’s right, of course. Holden’s orbit is planetary. It loops around and around, and before you know it, he’s the center of everything else in your life. Because he shows up with coffee out of the blue and takes you on surprise trips to places you think you’d hate, like waterparks, and then convinces you to love them like he does.

  I squeeze some hand sanitizer into my palm, as if that would cleanse me of the feeling of Holden’s hand in mine.

  “Mandatory subject change: Tell me about the investigation,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to help with anything after school.”

  I had rushed straight from the Aquarium Oasis field trip to soccer practice and then just barely made it to work at five, in my sweaty practice clothes. Bran had a bowl of his mom’s noodle soup waiting for me in the ticket booth, which I slurped down in about ten seconds.

  “We’re not done with this Holden conversation,” warns Bran. “But, okay. Subject change noted. The investigation is not going at all.”

  “Did you go by Wanda’s?”

  Bran nods. “I did, but it’s closed.”

  “Closed? They’re never closed.”

  “Except when they sell a winning lotto ticket and get a fifty thousand dollar payout for being the ones who sold it.”

  My stomach sinks. “Doesn’t the winner have to come forward before they get that?”

  Bran shakes his head. “Nope. I looked it up. They get the payout immediately, and in Wanda’s case, she left a sign on the door saying she and Mary Anne are on vacation for the first time in ten years.”

  Welp. At least somebody is enjoying their surprise riches. I just hope they don’t end up having to give them back (or worse) if the world finds out they sold the ticket to me as a minor. Knowing Wanda and her family’s happiness is at stake unless I figure out what to do with this ticket just makes finding someone to cash it ASAP that much more urgent.

  But who?

  Mom? Grandma? Holden? Is there no one else I can trust?

  There really isn’t. And I will have to choose from these three soon.

  Ugh.

  LAKESBORO COMMUNITY FACEBOOK GROUP FRIDAY, 11:00 P.M.

  AMY PEMBERLY: Starting a new thread here about the lotto winner because I seriously cannot believe no one has come forward.

  MARY FULTON: Same! How can you just be sitting on all that money? Like, if you don’t want it, give it to someone who does!

  LISA HAWKINS: Agreed! It’s unthinkable. Send some of that money my way. Lord knows I could use it for bills or gas in my car.

  AMY PEMBERLY: I think it’s a sin to waste all that money and not come forward.

  MARY FULTON: They have 180 days to claim it; we could be in for a long wait, folks.

  J. WILKINS: They’re a coward for not coming forward.

  MARY FULTON: Now, don’t be so harsh. Maybe they’ve got something going on we don’t know about.

  J. WILKINS: YEAH right. Like they’re now worth more than the entire budget of this town for the year. Talk to me later about all their problems. [100 more comments]

  CHAPTER TEN

  DID YOU KNOW MOST OF THE OCEAN IS A WATERY DESERT? IT’S HUGE and empty, with predators cruising endlessly. At least that’s what David Attenborough reports in his series for the BBC, The Blue Planet.

  I’m deep in a The Blue Planet marathon on Saturday morning, and I’m alternating between jotting down facts about the ocean in my notebook, avoiding Bran’s phone calls, composing replies that I then delete to Holden’s friendly text—It was fun to hang out! We should do it again soon—and doing homework. I’ve seen all the The Blue Planet episodes a dozen times already, but Attenborough’s soothing voice and the magnificent, aloof, turbulent ocean are the only company I can handle right now.

  The Facebook threads about the lotto winner are getting worse. I don’t normally go on Facebook, but now I can’t seem to stay out of the town’s group. It’s like watching an accident in slow motion. People seem genuinely pissed that no one has come forward, and there’s been talk of bodily harm. As I read through the threads, all I can think about are those predators in the deep, empty places of the ocean, cruising around, looking for something to sink their teeth into.

  Fifty-eight million dollars is a lot to sink your teeth into.

  At three o’clock in the afternoon, there’s a knock on my window. Although my room is on the second story of the farmhouse, and that should be a deterrent to using the window as a door, I immediately know it’s Bran. Because who else would show up at my house like this? I also know he’ll keep knocking unless I answer.

  I somehow manage to haul myself off my bed and push the curtains aside. Then I nearly fall over.

  Eeeek.

  It’s not Bran. It’s Holden. He’s balancing on the top of a rickety metal pool ladder (one of Mom’s oldest finds) and holding two cups of Starbucks.

  “Uhm … hi,” I say as I open the window. I try not to cringe as I imagine how Holden must be seeing me: braless, wearing a tank top and leggings and no makeup, which could be an effortlessly chic look on some girls, but not me.

  “Brought you coffee,
” says Holden by way of greeting. He hands up both of our cups. “It’s a vanilla latte. Can I come in?”

  Something in my heart lurches. Holden never used the front door when we were dating because I didn’t want him to see the overall state of the house. This is a few steps too close to those old times.

  “Why?” I can’t keep the note of suspicion from my voice. After my talk with Bran yesterday, and about a thousand pep talks with myself today, I vowed to keep my distance from Holden.

  “Because I can hear David Attenborough’s voice from out here, and no one has seen you all day. That can mean only one thing: The Blue Planet binge. Which in turn can only mean one thing: that you’re super stressed or worried about something and need some company.”

  I hate that he knows this about me.

  “What if I don’t want company?”

  Holden shrugs. “Then I’ll leave the coffee and be on my way.”

  I sigh. I do want company. Because being alone with my enormous $58 million secret, my homework, and Mom’s piles of junk cannot be good for any seventeen-year-old.

  “Fine.”

  He grins. Then, in one fluid movement, he hoists himself into my room. His presence fills it.

  “I like what you did with the place,” he says, gesturing to the pile of papers on the bed. “And I still haven’t read this book. Even though you gave me a copy ages ago.”

  He picks up Sea Change and turns it over to read the back-cover copy. Putting our cups down so fast some of the coffee sloshes onto my nightstand, I snatch the book from Holden’s hands. The winning lotto ticket is still inside, and I’ve only looked at it like nine hundred times today. All Holden would have to do is flip through the pages, and the truth would be out.

  Of course, if I just told him about it and asked him to cash the ticket for me, then problem solved. But can I really trust Holden to give me the money? What if he took all the money for himself and went off to live that super-rich lifestyle he’s always talking about?